I suppose since the launch of my first book in January 2015 i have been a bit lazy on this site. It’s not because i haven’t wanted to do anything, but because i have been working on my new site, as well as marketing my books. The first story was Captain Grisswold with his crew and friends, which if you have learned anything about my books at all, will know is always the major title of this series, the secondary title is the one you should look out for in your local book shop and on Amazon KDP.

I am trying to get all the experiences on here a lot better for my readers.

I want to introduce competitions, and letters and so, so much more. This site is all about my books and nothing else, apart from my readers and me ofcourse.

We have recently taken on a small rescue dog from Dogs trust at Loughborough, i can not recommend those young people enough, They are so professional and helpful, not only do they understand dogs to a higher degree than i have ever known, they pass on there information in an understandable way, to make us all have an insight to a dogs nature.

We were not really searching for a dog until my friend mentioned they had too many and would be considering letting one of them go, at first we took this as a joke, they are real animal lovers and not the type to give up.

After some consideration on our part we broached the subject only to find it was a passing comment, not serious at all, but we then had a bug, an unscratchable itch for a loving pet in our new house, so setting about finding the right one, we checked the internet, dogs trust, p.d.s.a and a few others.

Our first visit to dogs trust we found a lovable little 4 yr old pug cross called Freya, unfortunately she was already reserved for another couple. Out of our reach, we thought, until one Friday morning about three weeks ago, a phone call to say that the previous couple had dropped out and were we still interested.

In the words of a famous dog “Oh Yes” we jumped in the car and shot off like a bullit, as fast as the speed limit would allow to the wonderful site at Whymeswold, We were shown around and eventually met Freya, we fell in love with her straight away, she is very frightened, and skittish she just needs a lot of love and attention, she has been bred heavily, more or less a breeding machine, never seen the inside of a house, has no idea how to have fun and play, in short just for money! sickening isn’t it.

After several visits to whymeswold we had a new aspect of dog care, thanks to those brilliant individuals at Dogs trust, they really know their stuff, We have a beautiful little puppy, giving us so much pleasure and in return we give her a loving and comfortable home, i still think we win.

This superb start to the series of children’s story books is a colour introduction to great new Characters Children from 4/8 will love and identify with, as the stories unfold and slightly older Children will enjoy the quizzes and questions as they learn about the crew and animals on the canal banks.

Who’s who on the crew is the first title, by way of introducing all the main parts of a boat and using the characters to show how boats worked long ago, before trains and auto mobiles when loads of everything was moved around on Narrow boats,

It is not a history lesson, more about entertaining children, but with a reference to how things were done, in a funny and satyrical way.

Always wanted to create a web site that helped both writers and the reading public, i think i have found a way to do that;
IF i reblog all the writers that join me and offer the site to prospective readers who are looking for their favourit writers, that in tern would help everyone, Yes!

While most people focus on the ‘surprise’ element of the attack, the reality is that the cascade events leading up to it were a mixed bag of obvious, and worse, miscalculations. Both the Americans and the Japanese military seriously misjudged each other’s intentions and war plans.

In light of this anniversary, I’ve pulled the event and made it a .99 special on Kindle (free is you have Kindle Unlimited). It’s short, but lists the six key cascade events that led up to seventh event, the actual attack. This follows my Rule of Seven, where every catastrophe involving humans doesn’t occur in isolation. There are always at least six cascade events leading up to the catastrophe and at least one (if not all) involved human error. Thus many catastrophes can be avoided.

In a recent piece at The Millions, Nick Ripatrazone writes about the gestation of ideas and vertical writing, or the process of slowing down and digging deeper when writing a story. He describes the process of Andre Dubus, who writes an idea in a notebook, then leaves it alone for as long as it needs to ripen. Dubus doesn’t think about a story — “I will kill the story by controlling it,” he says.

But Dubus’ process wasn’t always this way: before, he planned his plots, forced his characters to do things, wrote a lot of words, and went through too many drafts. This is horizontal writing: a focus on the daily sessions, the revisions, and the amassment of pages and words. Ripatrazone talks about the difference between horizontal and vertical writing:

Vertical writing, in contrast, values depth over breadth. Stories are written when they are ready to…